Brambles, Balsalm, Bracken and Building Regs

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Listening to: Son Of Dave - Leave Without Runnin'
via FoxyTunes
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Listening to: Ludovico Einaudi & Ballaké Sissoko - Chameaux
via FoxyTunes
Well another month has just flown past, sometimes it scares me how quickly the year is slipping by. As usual we have been busy, poor James has cleared about an acre of Himalayan balsalm - and that is no mean feat!












It's hard! The plant itself is feeble, or so it seems. The wretched thing can be hanging on by a thread, it looks dead at the cut and then you look up, healthy leaves and an enthusiastic flower bud. Now I hear you cry what do you have against Himalayan Balsalm? It's pretty, it's great for bees and the seed pods are fun to burst! Well it takes over, everything! Of course it's used to a more challenging environment, you can get that from the name, so it has an exuberant seed strategy. It produces a lot! Each plant can produce 800 seeds! So the bottom valley is full of the stuff, we knew it was bad, but as the year has gone on we have realised how much this problem has been neglected.

We have a lot of bracken and brambles down there as well and whilst both are good local plants you don't want them taking over. Bracken is phenomenal, it has so many tricks up it's sleeve it's amazing that the whole planet is not covered in the stuff. It releases a toxin from it's roots which kills off other competing plants, it's carconogenic to grazing animals, it's spores have been implicated as being carconogenic, it releases a sugary substance at it's base which guarantees it an ant army who will fight any insects trying to attack the plant and you can see why it's very succesful. So whilst we want some we don't want 2 or 3 acres. Onto the brambles, well I love them in many respects, free autumn food for me and the birds, but it's also extremely invasive and is a bit of a pioneer species for woodlands. Now I also love woodlands but I think a mix of habitats is important, so we will be managing the brambles to acceptable levels.


With regards to the barn, our poor architect was broken into and all his stuff was stolen, so poor Dave was left with a massive headache of sorting out insurance claims, computers etc, he has still managed to provide us with drawings which are the precursors for our building reg application. He's also going to be speaking to some builders for us so we will hopefully be able to report some progress on the barn in the coming months.


We have moved on in the luxury stakes, we have a solar panel on our yurt which will be able to power a lamp, a laptop, our radio and more to boot! We're also on the grid at the caravan which means we have a fridge, we've managed ok till now but moving on into the summer months (however chilly they feel at the moment) is proving more of a challenge. We also have water in the yurt! Yes the tap in the sink works...

Our meadow also continues to develop - as James and I try to fathom out how to manage it in the best possible way. Meadows are very complex habitats which have developed over thousands of years, starting out as clearings in a wood man has developed them, woodlands eventually turning into the field margins of hedgerows, the plants that develop in the clearing have a very complicated relationship. As 98% of meadows have been lost since the 2nd world war we are keen to ensure we preserve this one.